Getting a loan for a fall home purchase

WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- The local housing market generally stays pretty active early in the Fall.

Thursday morning, Bill White, mortgage expert and VP of Real Estate Lending from NASA Federal Credit Union, joined us with some ideas for putting our best food forward.

Lending has tightened after the 2008 financial crisis. Some buyers are being required to put 20% down, and that's a lot of cash to have when you come into the process of buying a home. But there are other options out there. Credit unions may be the option that a lot of people might want to look at.

"Credit unions are an up and coming type of financial institution for mortgage home lending that a lot of people overlook initially. Credit unions versus banks or big banks especially are a little more member centric. Take a look at the guidelines. Maybe they're a little more lenient than you would see at a large institution," said White.

You can find mortgage products where you can have zero percent down, essentially a hundred percent financing still. White told us, "There are a limited number of programs out there like that. If you're fortunate to be a veteran, the Veterans Administration has a hundred percent financing. NASA term has 100% financing option on purchases also."

We've seen interest rates climbing the last couple of weeks. Everybody thought the fed was going to move to start ending the stimulus program. They chose not to Wednesday. Where do rates head from here?

According to White, "The good news is for the mortgage industry and for individuals looking to now get into the mortgage market. That's good news because we're not going to see another spike in interest rates. It was a little bit after surprise that they decided to hold off but the economy kind of dictates that they do that... because of that at least for the rest of this year, maybe going into the spring of next year should remain relatively constant to where they are now but we don't see them dropping significantly."

There is a debate whether or not Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be going away. If they do, what would happen to interest rates for mortgage buyers?

"There's still long process to go through that but in general if they go away and it's more privatized, you're going to see a half to three- quarters after percent increase just in general interest rates to compensate for the government a hundred percent backing," said White.